Four new NEOR (Northeast Regional) records and a grand total of 24 medals (plus a boatload of provincial qualifying times): the Murray Drudge Invitational hosted two weekends ago at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre was a good one for Sudbury Laurentian Swim Club athletes.
Already among the Canadian elite in the breaststroke, 21 year-old Alexandre Landry established new all-time best regional marks in the 50m breaststroke (28.57 seconds), the 100m breaststroke (1:02.27) as well as the 200m breaststroke (2:14.52), all in the Male 17& Over category.
A 14 year-old grade nine student at Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School, James Ford is just beginning to make similar waves, lowering the bar in the 50m backstroke (Male 13-14) with a clocking of 28.55 seconds.
Ironically, the teen who is now in his second year with the SLSC entourage was more concerned about posting a time in the 50m backstroke that was faster than Landry's time at the same distance in the breaststroke than he was about breaking a record which he acknowledged being unaware of until after the race.
"I kind of thought I was going to do better this year," said Ford over the weekend. "But in the first meet, I didn't go as fast as I possibly could have. Throughout the meets (after that), my race strategy has developed more."
Mind you, the 50m back is pretty much an all-out sprint, a fact which plays to one of the strengths of the local swimmer.
"For backstroke, most of the times, people that are better can hold a really high stroke rate," Ford noted. And while he is not going to post PB lap times during any number of his numerous training sessions with SLSC, it is an environment where he - and others - find themselves pushed by their peers.
"One of the things that helped me was that there are a lot of fast and competitive guys around my age (with SLSC) that helped me improve," he said. "I am always trying to be faster than them."
"Most of the times, we don't actually tell each other that we are trying to beat each other in practice," Ford added. "We'll just speed up to beat them."
That kind of friendly in-house competition can become infectious. When combined with key and very detailed technical improvements, you have the makings of record-setting times.
"My turns could be faster - and also my underwaters could be a bit better," said Ford. "What makes it hard (on the turns) is that you only have one stroke on the front (in the backstroke), so you have to have it just the right distance for your feet to land on the right angle on the wall."
Ford finished the meet with three gold medals (50m/100m/200m backstroke) as well as a silver in the 200m individual medley, a collection of hardware that was matched by both Alexandre Landry (silver in 100m/200m breaststroke; bronze in 50m breaststroke and 200m I.M.) as well as newcomer Owen Baas (silver in 200m/400m I.M. and 200 breaststroke; bronze in 50m breaststroke - Male 15-16).
Brooke Herranen (Female 15-16) joined Ford as a first place finisher (50m butterfly), adding that to a pair of second place efforts (100m/200m butterfly), with Callum Duncan (Male 11-12) also bringing home three separate pieces of hardware (silver in 100m breaststroke and bronze in 200m breaststroke and 400m individual medley).
Reaching the podium twice each were Jacob Guillet (Male 15-16 - silver in 100m butterfly; bronze in 200m butterfly) and Jayda Hartley (Female 15-16 - bronze in the 50m and 200m backstroke), with Daxton Hester (silver in Male 13-14 1500m freestyle) capping things off in terms of top three placements for an SLSC crew that now prepares to compete at the Winter Invite in Markham next month.
